Pain leads to technology adoption

I love watching people's faces when they see what the In'flector see-through window insulation does with my standard window-tester. It is rather amazing to see how radiant energy so easily passes through various types of windows, but gets reflected by this aluminum-sided product.

Currently the world has enough technology, and those who know how to make it work, to completely change our economies from carbon-based to carbon-free energy systems. We need to begin by saving most of the energy we currently waste (mostly in transportation and buildings, plus food production). Then we can tap into such things as tidal power, the sun, wind, and others such as geo-thermal (using the heat from the core of the planet).

The problem is not the technology. The problem is will-power. We are not yet hurting enough, despite the increasing number of droughts, floods, storms, rising oceans, disappearing water sources, etc. Without enough pain we are unlikely to change much.

Pain will be coming. I see that gas prices are again rising. Why? We're running out of cheap oil, and the demand keeps on rising. This pain may help us to save ourselves from a terrible future of rapidly changing weather.

Seems strange to be hoping for pain. But, much like having a dentist repair a cavity, such pain is needed in order to avoid a much greater pain, and loss, later on. We do owe this to our children and grandchildren, and all the other lifeforms that share this earth-ship with us.